Yesterday we hosted the fourth annual Share the Road Ride. This is the only Soaring Spirits event that is dedicated to my Phil in any obvious way. Banners, flyers, t-shirts all bear his name. Friends from all areas of our shared lives come together, volunteers donate their time to support our Share the Road message, and Phil’s love for a good, long…
young widow
5
***Written in 2010, but with a 2013 photo. With this year being my 5th Anniversary, I thought it a perfect time to re-post. :)*** This weekend I’ll be at the Austin City Limits Music Festival. 8 stages, over a hundred bands, but to me it is so much more. Last October, my best friend (and fellow widow) and I ventured out on the green grass,…
What if I Forget?
What If I Forget …. His smell. His funny lips and the way they turned up at the corner. His skin. His dry skin that always needed chapstick, and his back that always needed to be scratched. What If I forget … Those piercing blue eyes that became someone else’s eyes when he donated them to the eye bank. The way they looked at me. Through me.
I Promise
“Don’t be too late tonight, I really want to spend some time with you.” “I won’t. It’ll be an early hunt. I’ll be back before the kids go to bed. I promise.” I promise. Right before we exchanged I love you’s, this was one of the last things I heard Jeremy say to me. I’ve played it out so many times in my head, it gets very muddled now,…
Looking After Me
There’s someone I’ve been neglecting for the past 3.5 years. She is strong, but has infrequent, spectacular meltdowns due to the ….(there is no word to describe this but widows know the feeling) …. of it all. She loves hard, but falls hard. She picks herself back up again, dusts herself off and keeps going. She takes every sling and…
They Were There
“Why don’t you reread your Widow’s Voice posts from the beginning and see what kind of progress you’ve made.” My smart smart dude’s advice the other day when I talked to him about the possibility of identifying so much with widowhood that it was keeping me stuck in some ways. So I tried it. I didn’t expect to discover what I did. The overall…
Silver Lining
I made the mistake of going through mine and Seth’s old emails. He was in school full time. I worked a desk job. So we both sat in front of a computer all day.. and emailed each other during slow times. I have a million emails between us. Which can be a good thing and a bad thing. I came a crossed an email that reminded me of right…
Go, don’t follow the flow
I’m a pretty laid back cat. Put me in a room with great music, good company and a cold beer and I’m set. But that’s all external. Those are creature comforts. When it comes to the internal…. The decisions I make that will determine my life at that current moment. I’ve learned that the one thing you can’t be is laid back. You must be vigilant. A…
Hakomi
Every time I dissolve into tears and those tears, instead of cleansing, dissolve into more tears and a spiral down into depression and anxiety, I realize I’m worrying about the same things. I’m stuck. It’s the SSDD syndrome: Same Shit, Different Day. I KNOW worrying about the future is pointless. I KNOW accepting myself is crucial. I KNOW I’ll…
Insomnia
Ugh. Insomnia. We have been enemies friends for six very long years. I have tried sleeping pills. I have tried everything natural. I’ve tried having a normal routine. I’ve tried to not let myself lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for longer than 30 minutes before I get up and read, take a hot shower, attempt something to help me sleep. …
Solution
I’ve recently been on the search for a new home. It’s not a long distance from my current casa, but in an area I love and come alive in. During many of the showings of the houses I’ve found enticing, I’ve been bombarded with one question over and over from my brokers (aka parents). As we entered each place and I’d point out something I loved, they…
A picture is worth…
. …1000 words. Or, so they say. Whoever ‘they’ is. But, I think a picture is worth so much more than that. A picture doesn’t just convey an endless amount of words, but it can also capture an emotion that no words can describe. It can preserve a memory that might otherwise have been forgotten. It can make you laugh or cry just at the very sight…